Dozens get sick after dining at world’s best restaurant

A tasting menu at Danish restaurant Noma, consistently named among the world’s best, costs $250 a head — not including wine.

For at least 63 people who dined there last month, a generous helping of vomiting and diarrhea was on the house.

Danish food authorities faulted the famous restaurant for failing to protect its diners after one of its workers fell ill last month, apparently spreading gastroenteritis to dozens of its big-spending customers. The initial emailed report of the illness was ignored for four days by restaurant staff.

Noma is accustomed to basking in food industry glory. It has been crowned the world’s top restaurant on the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list three times, for example. Now it is wallowing in a new kind of spotlight. From The Guardian:

In a statement Peter Kreiner, Noma’s managing director, told Danish newspapers: “It is a matter that affects us all deeply, and which we are really sorry about.”

The restaurant recognised that internal procedures had not been good enough and said an email from the employee reporting the sickness had not been seen.

He also said the faulty [hot water] tap [identified by investigators] had been fixed by a plumber straight after the inspection and that the restaurant had changed its procedure around staff emails to avoid any future delays.

Kreiner said the restaurant was co-operating with health authorities and organising customer compensation.

The restaurant’s chefs are known for experimenting with such unusual ingredients as ants and fermented grasshoppers, Reuters tells us. Perhaps now its managers will experiment with promptly reading their emails.